i 



PS 




THE HOUSE 
ON THE HILL 



PREDEBICK A.WRIGHT 



^IMi 





Class jCii^B^ 



CCPMRIGHT DEPOSm 



THE HOUSE ON THE HILL 

and Other Poems 

BY 
FREDERICK A. WRIGHT 




BOSTON 

SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 

1916 



^ 






^^^ 






Copyhight, 1916 
Sherman, French &• Company 

OCT -2 1916 
©a.A438833 



To M. G. W. 

Though thy rich worth transcends the art 

Of all my poetry, 
This book of verses from my heart 

I dedicate to thee. 

The earth below, the heaven above. 
Thy nature sweet and strong, 

I melt them in the fire of love 
And coin them into song. 

Though rough the die, yet fire is there; 

Then take these songs. They ring 
Of metal true, and lo! they bear 

The image of our King. 



For permission to reprint " Good Morning " 
thanks are due to the owners of the copyright 
of The Critic; " Jacob " and " The Miracles " 
are included in this volume through the kind 
courtesy of The Churchman, 

F. A. W. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The House on the Hill 1 

The Galley Slave 3 

Winter at the Farm 4 

On the Strange Echoes in Savonarola's 

Cell 5 

At Sunset 6 

The Emissaries 7 

To the Daisy 8 

Good Morning 9 

Jacob 10 

Alfred Tennyson 11 

To Death 12 

Aurora 13 

Intuition 15 

To Percy Bysshe Shelley 16 

The Fairy Queen 17 

Marjorie 18 

The Lookout 19 

The Answer 20 

The Quest 21 

The Cost 23 

Secrets 24 

His Name 25 

A Journey in Winter 26 

The Hunters 27 

The Invisible Man 28 

Orpheus and Eurydice 30 

The Muse 31 

A Little Child 32 

All the World's a Stage 33 

The Fair Portion 34 

The Spirit of the Fields 35 

Jack-in-the-Pulpit 36 

The Northwest Wind 37 

Reality 39 



PAGE 

Wild Flowers 41 

The Monk's Prayer 42 

Song 44 

Echo 45 

The Boat 46 

Earth and Heaven 47 

A Dream of the South 48 

The Miracles 49 

Power and Love 50 

To A Soul 51 

The Reformed Pirate 52 

The Rising of the Star 53 

All that Thy Spirit Is to Me .... 54 

The Poet 55 

The Palisades 56 

Dawn by the Sea 57 



THE HOUSE ON THE HILL 
and Other Poems 



THE HOUSE ON THE HILL 

'Mid the crowds in the city thronging 

The streets that are never still, 
I turn with a secret longing 

To a house on a lonely hill. 

Like a bird, it looks far over 

Field, farmhouse, pasture and pond, 

Tobacco and corn and clover. 

To the western mountains beyond. 

Here, the multitudes rise from their slumber 
To the anxious cares of the day, 

And hurrying feet without number 
Wear the stones of the street away. 

There, the morning awakens the meadow 
And the day dawns over the wood. 

As God made a world from a shadow, 
" And behold it was very good." 

The partridges hide in the bushes 
And the rabbits feed in the grass, 

And the robins and grosbeaks and thrushes 
Sing aloud, and the wild deer pass. 

In the pasture the sheep are browsing. 
And the white clouds browse in the sky, 

And the lazy kine are drowsing, 
While the summer day goes by. 

[1] 



And it's all so different yonder 

From the scenes where my work is done, 
That I sometimes think that I wander 

Through two worlds instead of one. 

We are slaves of duty and pity, 
And cannot go where we will; 

I stay in the house in the city, 
But I live in the house on the hill. 



[2] 



THE GALLEY SLAVE 

The winds are the songs of the ocean, 

And the clouds are the dreams of the sky, 
And the river thinks in shadows 

Forever intangibly. 
And the mists are the moods of the meadows, 

Where the dews of the morning lie, 
And the forest speaks its message, 

And the mountains prophesy. 

And the life of my heart, where the sunshine 

And shadows shimmer and flee, 
Belongs to the great World-Spirit 

That is timeless and strong and free ; 
A galley slave in the dream cloud 

That sails the uncharted sea. 
Obeying the forms and the voices 

That give their commands to me. 



[3] 



WINTER AT THE FARM 

When the ice is under the ruined mill, 

And the brown weeds hiss in the wintry gust, 

And the farmer forgets his summer skill, 

And the idle plowshare is rimmed with rust. 

Then heap on wood for the wind blows chill. 

When the willows are bare by the frozen rill. 
And the western sun is like gold on the snow, 

And the shadows lengthen and deepen until 
The stars shine white on the fields below. 

Then heap on wood for the wind blows chill. 

When the snow drifts deep on the storm-swept 
hill. 
And the branches toss, and the night comes 
on, 
And the nests of the birds are as cold and still 

As a poet's brain when the life has gone, 
Then heap on wood for the wind blows chill. 

When the garnered gifts of the summer fill 
The utmost bounds of the threshing floor. 

When the lights are lit and the rafters thrill 
With a friendly knock at a lonely door. 

Then heap on wood for the wind blows chill. 



[4] 



ON THE STRANGE ECHOES IN 
SAVONAROLA'S CELL 

Softly the gathering shades of evening fall 
On chair and desk and book and the bare 

floor; 
The deepening gloom of twilight settles o'er 
Bartolomeo's picture on the wall. 
Those prophet lips which Rome could not 
appall, 
(The torture was but half a conqueror), 
Are sealed in silence now forevermore ; 
A mightier potentate holds them in thrall. 
But the deep echoes in the inner Cell, 

In cavernous reverberating tones, 
Like some far voice across the ages, tell 

Of midnight prayers and secret sobs and 

groans 
And blood-bought vows, until the very stones 
Are vocal with a voice remembered well. 



[5] 



AT SUNSET 

The sun has sunk behind the hill, 
The misty fields are dim and still, 
And slumbrous purple shadows fill 

The hollows of the day. 
And even the little baby rill 

Is weary of its play. 

On many a world sinks many a sun, 
Where countless stars their courses run 
Ah ! when this happy world is gone, 

And all its joys are o'er, 
Grant us, dear Lord, as fair a one 

Out of thy boundless store. 



[6] 



THE EMISSARIES 

My days are like the flakes of snow 

Upon a windy night ; 
I cannot seize them as they go, 

Nor check their wayward flight ; 
E'en while I gaze, they hurry on 
Into the darkness, and are gone; 
Strange envoys from that mystery 
That mortal vision cannot see. 

My days are like the waves that run 

Upon the rocky steep; 
In long succession, one by one. 

They ebb into the deep. 
Voices from endless leagues of brine 
Beyond the far horizon line; 
The messages they bring to land 
I hear, but cannot understand. 



[7] 



TO THE DAISY 

Sweetest wild flower of the fields, 

Darling of the sunlit sky, 
Oh, the radiance that it yields 

To thine upward-gazing eye! 

Bending grasses, soft and sweet, 
Stately grasses, tall and fair. 

Wash with tears of dew thy feet. 
Wipe them with their waving hair. 

Secrets that the lark knows well 
In thy dainty form appear ; 

To the eye thy grace doth tell 
What his songs tell to the ear. 

Lest thou wither in the heat 

When the morning dews depart, 

Lest thy loveliness should fleet. 
See, I plant thee in my heart. 

There thy blossom never dies, 

Never droops the fadeless spring; 

There the dew forever lies. 
There the birds forever sing. 



[8] 



GOOD MORNING 

Good morning, my little boy blue ! 

The flush of the dawn's in the sky, 
The grass of the meadow is wet with the dew. 

And the robin is singing on high. 

The sun of ambition not yet 

Has come, with its pitiless rays. 
To bring you the panting, the pain, and the 
sweat. 

Of the noontide of passion ablaze. 

No sign of the cloud-rack appears. 

No hint of the wild afternoon. 
The lightning of loss and the tempest of tears. 

And the darkness that falleth too soon. 

I 
Then follows the bow of that peace 

Which paints the departing of light. 
When pleasures and labors and sorrows must 
cease 

In the infinite calm of the night. 

Good morning, then, little boy blue! 

The flush of the dawn's in the sky. 
The grass of the meadow is wet with the dew, 

And the robin is singing on high. 



[9] 



JACOB 

As on some stormy night, a giant tree 

Thrusts up its gaunt and brawny arms to 

find 
And wrestle with the angel of the wind, 
And gains a friend, mysterious, wild and free. 
Whose name it cannot learn, whose form it 
cannot see: 

So, in the darkness of eternity 

And night and chaos, stands the human 

mind. 
And reaches upward, buffetted and blind, 
To grope amid the sky of destiny. 
And wins the Soul unnamed, behind the mystery. 



[10] 



ALFRED TENNYSON 

Elijah-like, his spirit climbs the sky 
In blazing chariot terrible and fleet, 

Amid the falling stars, like sparks that fly 
Beneath his flaming charger's fiery feet. 

And he who sees his vanishing flight receives 
A portion of the spirit of his rhyme. 

And that prophetic mantle, which still cleaves 
A passage through the Jordan stream of time. 



[11] 



TO DEATH 

Ah, Death ! that givest us sweet reprieves, 

Like Autumn's afterglow. 
Ere she blows out the light of her flaming leaves 

And lies down on her pillow of snow. 
What secrets lie hidden of joy and Spring 
'Neath the silent down of thy snow-white wing? 



[18] 



AURORA 

As the morning shines forth with a splendor 
beseeming 
Aurora, whose smile is the light of the day, 
So the soul of my love, o'er my destiny stream- 
ing, 
Through life's solemn sky shoots her opaline 
ray. 
And the fathomless gloom becomes fathomless 
gleaming 
And melts in the infinite azure away. 

All the roseate mists of the morning are bring- 
ing 
A tribute to her of the gems they possess. 
And the brook in the cool of its shadows is sing- 
ing 
In music the praise that no words can express, 
And the breath of the flowers tells the love that 
is clinging 
Deep hid in the heart of her womanliness. 

As the breezes are laden with gladness that waft 
her 
The joy of bird voices whose music she hears, 
As the mist hath a silvery radiance after 

The night dews are past and the sunlight 
appears, 

[13] 



So she thrills with a mirth that is lighter than 
laughter, 
And glows with a pity more tender than tears. 

'Mid the glistening dews of Nepenthe I sought 
her, 
And wandered alone through the fields of the 
sky; 
From the blossom of asphodel meadows I 
brought her 
And with her the bloom of the day star on 
high, 
And to taste of her love is to drink of the water 
Of life from a spirit that never can die. 



[14] 



INTUITION 

How came this sense of boundless space and 
years 
To be thy burden, O my heart? Where hast 
Thou heard the name Eternity? Thy past 

Is fathomless. What starry host of tears, 

Half seen amid the twilight dawn, appears? 
What message comes to thee upon the blast, 
Chill from immeasurable gulfs and vast. 

Through which forever roll the mighty spheres ? 

Doth not the great World-Soul from spaces lit 
By star rays incarnation find in thee. 
To there enshrine a shadowy memory. 

That, with strange intimations, it may fit 

Thy spirit to stand, fearless, erect and free, 

Before the presence of the Infinite? 



[1,5] 



TO PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 

The forbidden patter of little feet 
Disturbed the hush of my hour alone, 

But had my verse a cadence as sweet, 

It would beggar the music of Shelley's own. 

O Shelley, I've loved you passing well. 

And you've sung to me many happy times. 

But a footstep's poetry can tell 

What never was written in books of rhymes. 



[16] 



THE FAIRY QUEEN 

The Queen is gone from the forest ; gone 
From the mountain's enchanted place ! 

Dead with the winds and the dews of dawn, 
And the mists that the sunbeams chase 1 

Clouds in the sky as the day wears on, 
And wrinkles upon the face. 

Goblin, brownie, and elf, and fay, 

From the meadows all have fled. 
Like the young whom the pangs of hunger slay 

When the mother bird is dead. 
Alas ! that the hunter found his prey ! 

Alas ! that the arrow sped ! 

Science hated and hunted all 

The gentle fairy brood; 
He drove the gnome from the waterfall 

And the peri out of the wood. 
And he made the populous forest hall 

A desolate solitude. 

Plenty of wisdom and knowledge and truth! 

And labor's weary stroke ! 
Ambition and pride and wealth, forsooth! 

And the harness and the yoke ! 
But oh I for the vanished vision of youth. 

The Queen of the fairy folk. 

[17] 



MARJORIE 

The sun shone bright 

On the golden summer hours, 
And the gentle air was laden 

With the perfume of the flowers 

Like the bees with their honey 
O'er the fragrant fields that rove, 

Like the days with their gladness, 
Like the heart with its love. 

When Marjorie and I, 

All the long, long day. 
Planned the life that lay before us, 

As the sweet fields lay. 

And we wandered off together. 

Like two idlers in a dream. 
O'er the grasses in the meadow. 

And the gentian by the stream. 

Till a gleaming cloud at sunset, 
Like some glorious hope on high, 

Withdrew our thoughts from fields of flowers 
And fixed them in the sky. 



[18] 



THE LOOKOUT 

With eye fixed on the future, and with mind 
Intent on truth, he takes the place assigned 
By the Almighty Captain of mankind. 

Alone he notes with anxious glances how 
The waves of fortune curl beneath the prow ; 
He feels the winds of ocean on his brow. 

The mighty engines beat and throb below, 

And weary workers hurry to and fro, 

And merry crowds who heed not where they go. 

The stars above him twinkle from the height 
Of heaven, like some intermittent light 
From islands in the ocean of the night. 

Before him, with weird cries a wandering 
Wild creature flaps her never resting wing, 
Like homeless love that hath not where to cling. 

He dreameth of the land that is to be 
Beyond the shifting shadows of the sea. 
Beyond the night of starry mystery, — 

The land where weary travellers find a rest. 
Where beckoning stars veer in the boundless 

west. 
Where homeless love at last shall build her nest. 

[19] 



THE ANSWER 

Is this the temple where the Lord doth dwell 
In hallowed walls on consecrated ground, 

While all the age-long noises of a hell 

Of grief and want and warfare rage around? 

And will He bid men's laggard voices swell 

The psalm with those who cry that all is well? 

No answer breaks the quiet of the sky ; 

The silence is like mist upon the sea 
Where ships go down ; till, as to make reply, 

The organ's voice bursts forth in harmon}^. 
With discords deftly interwined, and I 
Discern therein a message from on high 

Of heavenly motives, moved at the behest 
Of loftier ends than human spirits seek. 

Through discords on to harmony and rest. 
Supporting the faint spirits of the weak. 

Making them strong for thorny paths un- 
guessed. 

That shun the better, to attain the best. 



[20] 



THE QUEST 

Amid the shifting currents of 
The seas of human thought, 

I put my hope in God above, 

Where'er my barque be brought, 

And do not think my quest of love 
At last will come to naught. 

With pure, untarnished lustre my 

Ideal shines afar. 
And lures my gaze into the sky, 

Retreating like a star. 
And shows a wider world on high, 

Where the eternal are. 

Where jagged precipices frown 
'Mid snowy cliffs and hoar. 

Or where a peaceful sea kneels down. 
With palm trees bending o'er. 

And gently lays its jewelled crown 
Of foam upon the shore; 

'Mid northern cold or tropic heat. 
Through misty shapes of death, 

By day or night, in sun or sleet. 
Borne on the breeze's breath; — 

Unresting still, I sail to greet 
A form that beckoneth. 

[21] 



Conflicting are the currents of 
The seas of human thought, 

But I look up to heaven above, 
As every true man ought. 

And do not think my quest of love 
At last will come to naught. 



[22] 



THE COST 

Death is the price we pay for life ; 

The fairest hopes are matched with fears, 
And conquest ever hath its strife, 

And victory its tears. 
We buy the glory with the slain: 
It will not bring them back again. 

We work our own salvation out ; 

We purchase manhood with our youth. 
And found our faith on many a doubt, 

And agonize for truth, 
While science fair, for whom we sigh. 
Can only bid her lovers die. 

We know Christ died to save mankind 
From sin ; no mortal man may guess 

The cost to the Almighty Mind 
To save from nothingness 

A world. We see the world He made: 

We do not see the price He paid. 

And I would save our love sublime 

From the same void. Ah, God ! that we. 

Who cannot catch the skirts of Time, 
Would grasp eternity; 

That in our heart of flesh it lies 

To pay that cost and win that prize. 

[23] 



SECRETS 

The splendor-throned summer sun 
Is vassal of some other one 

Beyond the reach of thought. 
But what that other one may be 
Is never told to thee or me, 

Or how his will is wrought. 

Piloted by the autumn breeze, 
Yon cloud explores the sunset seas, 

But will not come again 
Across the harbor bar of light 
That bounds the ocean of the night, 

To tell its tale to man. 

The wintry polar light streams forth. 
And round the camp fires of the North 

A band of stars appears ; 
And there a martial song is sung. 
But it is not for mortal tongue. 

And not for human ears. 



[24] 



HIS NAME 

Love pierces the depths of the heart like the 
sun in the ocean ; 

Love rides on the heights of the soul like the 
clouds in the sky ; 

Love reigns in the tempests of death like the 
midnight's commotion ; 

Love gleams on the summits of life like the day- 
star on high. 

In the sea and the sky and the winds and the 

mountains I sought Him; 
In the sea and the sky and the earth He was 

ever the same ; 
The depths and the heights and the dying and 

living have brought Him, 
And now He dwells with me forever, and Love 

is His name. 



[25] 



A JOURNEY IN WINTER 

The evening shadows solemnly 

Enclosed the road we trod; 
Out of the night's dim mystery 

Our pathway, rod by rod, 
Unfolded, like futurity 

Out of the hand of God. 

The winds amid the forest drear 

Were wandering to and fro. 
Like wolves that lonely woodmen hear 

At night across the snow ; 
The brook stopped frozen, white with fear, 

And did not dare to flow. 

The eddies of the snow were white 
As whirlpools flecked with foam. 

Ah! sad it is, on such a night. 
For houseless folk to roam ; 

But hearts are light and eyes are bright 
When steps are turned toward home. 



[26] 



THE HUNTERS 

Life's poetry lies hid in common things, 

Which we dull hunters pass unheeding by, 

Until there comes a sudden flutter of wings 
That leaves us gazing at an empty sky. 



[27] 



THE INVISIBLE MAN 

We boys used to know a sprite of the air 

That no one could ever spy, 
And yet we knew when he was there, 

And could tell when he passed by. 
And once he spoke to us as we played, 

And every one of us ran ; 
And once he upset a boat that I made, — 

The old Invisible Man. 

He used to move the things that we hid. 

And he took our things away, 
And he always knew what we said and did, 

Wherever we were at play. 
We could hear that sprite in our rooms at night, 

As only the children can, 
And as we listened we shook with fright. 

And said, " The Invisible Man " ! 

But somehow this spirit passed away 

With childhood's pleasures and fears ; 
I suppose that maybe he went astray 

In the labyrinth of the years. 
Oh ! his robe was the trailing clouds of the dawn 

When the morning of life began ; 
He belongs with the times and the friends that 
are gone, — 

The old Invisible Man. 

[28] 



The things we get and the things we achieve 

Are things we can feel and see ; 
And it's easy to doubt, and it's hard to believe, 

And where is the mystery? 
We are grown-up folks, in a grown-up age, 

And we live on a grown-up plan. 
And there's many a worker and many a sage. 

But no Invisible Man. 



[29] 



ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 

Orpheus of the heart ablaze, 

Sunshine of the sky above, 
Seeks the dawning of the days. 

Seeks Eurydice, his love ; 
In the shadow-land she strays. 

With the lyre of memory, 

In the land where that which seems 
Is the one reality, 

Orpheus walks with her in dreams 
Through a starlit melody. 

But its stars grow dim and wan. 
Fade — and so at length depart. 

Like those eyes that now have gone 
From the zenith of our heart 

Into the eternal dawn. 

Faces, cliff -like, cold and white, 

Summits inaccessible 
Which have pierced the snowy height 

Whence the morn is visible. 
Shine as with a heavenly light. 

Orpheus of the burning heart 
Rises from the land of sleep. 

Wakes to see his love depart. 
Fading down the azure steep 

Hushed the music, vain the art. 
[30] 



THE MUSE 

'Mid broken hearts and death's advancing 

wrong, 

I note the paean tones the poets use. 

" Is life all youth and love ? " I ask the muse. 

" Surely thou dwellest on this note o'er long, 

Failing to match time's changes with thy song. 

Should noon or evening dream of morning 

dews ? 
Should bankrupts sing the praise of what 
they lose? 
The feeble chant the epic of the strong? " 
Forthwith the muse replied. " While mor- 
tals march 
Into the strife and anguish of the fray, 
And wild eyes peer amid the shadows wan, 
Mine eye above the gloom of earth looks 
on 
Into the infinite peace of heaven's arch. 
And sees the dawn of the eternal day." 



[31] 



A LITTLE CHILD 

The morning light is in thine eyes ; 

Child of the dawn thou art; 
Unsullied and untrodden lies 

The dew upon thy heart. 

Thy youth and love have learned no fear 

Of pain or death to be ; 
Such ignorance is almost peer 

Of immortality. 

I hear a bird when night is gone, 

Whose songs can never cloy ; 
His heavens are thine eyes of dawn, 

His nest thy heart of joy. 



[32] 



ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE 

I READ in Shakespeare's famous line 

That " All the world's a stage." 
The drama's human and divine, 

The setting suits the age ; 
And ladies fair and gallants fine, 

The villain and the page, 
'Mid laughter glad, and song, and wine, 

Their various parts engage. 

Outside, the night is cold and wet, — 

Within are all things gay; 
We do not hear the wild winds fret. 

The little while we stay ; 
Our eyes upon the stage are set. 

Our minds upon the play — 
So easy is it to forget 

How wears the world away. 

But quickly finished is the show. 

And all at length prepare 
To take their leave; the lights burn low; 

There's many a vacant chair 
In many a blank, deserted row, 

Like sightless eyes that stare; 
But home at last the loiterers go. 

And rest their spirits the re. 



[3a] 



THE FAIR PORTION 

Oh, the petty ambitions that hold us thrall ! 

And the petty wars that we wage ! 
And the frets and worries that sting and gall ! 

And the strifes that our hearts engage ! 
When God's vast universe offers to all 

Its glorious heritage. 

Ripple of brooks on the mountain height, 
And the ageless wash of the sea. 

Songs of birds in the glad sunlight. 
And the wind in the maple tree, 

And the ceaseless sounds of the summer night, — 
Oh, give them, oh, give them to me ! 

My spirit flies with the birds that fl}^. 
And roams with the wolves that roam ; 

Buoyant as eagles that soar on high. 
And wild as their rocky home ; 

Free as the clouds in a windy sky. 
And fleet as the driven foam. 

Oh ! lovely, radiant, glorious Earth ! 

Behold, I flee unto you. 
Like the jaded days, for the second birth 

Of the baptism of the dew, 
And fill my dewdrop of finite worth 

With the infinite leagues of blue. 

[34] 



THE SPIRIT OF THE FIELDS 

I LOVE the time when all the maple trees 
Blush red beneath the kisses of the breeze, 

AVhen supple elms are feathered o'er with soft 
Green down, when purple lilac buds aloft 

Perfume the air ; and in the fields behind. 
The bloodroots, sweetest nurslings of the wind. 

And gentle violets, whose eyes of blue 
Are pure and chaste as star beams washed in 
dew, 

Beflower the pleasant carpet of the grass. 
And nod their pretty heads to all that pass. 

Sweet spirit of the fields, come to my heart, 
And there abide, and nevermore depart. 



[35] 



JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT 

I'm Jack-in-the-Pulpit ; 

The flowers are my congregation ; 
Whatever I tell them, they gulp it 

Without the least hesitation. 

They can't get away from my sermon; 

They have to stand still and receive it ; 
'Tis for me the truth to determine, 

'Tis for them to hear and believe it. 



[36] 



THE NORTHWEST WIND 

There is no wind like the great northwest wind ; 

The fogs and clouds before it flee, 
Like sins before a strong and righteous mind. 

It comes to set its people free. 

It rolls the thunder of its sudden wrath 
On many a startled summer hour ; 

The lightning in its strong right hand it hath, 
A fiery seraph sword of power. 

It walks the ocean in the morning light ; , 

The swift sunbeams before it dance. 

Its footsteps on the billows glisten white; 
No man may see its countenance. 

It knows the ranges of the mountain sheep; 

Its haunts are cliffs they cannot scale. 
On cloudy wings, o'er many a snowy steep, 

It soars where eagle pinions fail. 

The trees await it in the wintry sky ; 

Their tossing branches feel its spell ; 
Like Druid prophets of the days gone by. 

They utter forth its oracle. 

By lonely rivers, when the day is gone, 
The timid gray fox stops to hark, 

And knows the night wind's voice, and passes on 
Across the meadows in the dark. 
[37] 



Most stern and keen of all the Winter's powers 
Whose memory the Spring receives, 

Strong soldier soul behind the summer flowers, 
Pall bearer of the autumn leaves, 

There is no wind like the great northwest wind ; 

It is the spirit of the free ; 
The flight of its wild wing can no man bind. 

Nor circumscribe its destiny. 



[38] 



REALITY 

The skies are blue and Summer brings 

All happiness to earth; 
Upon the bough the robin sings, 
And crowds of bright and joyous things 
Flit by on gauzy, sunlit wings. 

Like careless hours of mirth. 

And ever sings the little rill 

A sweet and gentle tune. 
And all the sleepy winds are still ; 
The sunlight shines upon the hill ; 
The pleasant sounds of summer fill 

The golden afternoon. 

Yet all is but a pageant whirled 

Out from the orb of mind, — 
Cloud bulwarks girt with rainbow, hurled 
On empty space, and quickly furled, — 
And this is but the vapor world 

Of a sphere which rolls behind. 

And nothing lasting is but Love ; 

The inexorable stream 
Of time will all things else remove, 
And naught in earth, or heaven above. 
Be left the form or substance of 

The shadow of a dream. 

[39] 



And earth itself must fade anon, 

And quite forgotten be, 
Like some mirage that flickers on 
The mind's horizon and is gone, 
And soul be left to soul alone 
Throughout eternity. 



[40] 



WILD FLOWERS 

My feet are on a winding way, 
The pleasant fields among; 

The wind is on my face, a lay 
Of gladness on my tongue ; 

The morning shines with lavish ray 
Across the meadows flung. 

The mountains rise against the sky, 
And build their rocky towers ; 

The quiet woods are nearer by. 
With mossy nooks and bowers ; 

And where the sheltering shadows lie 
I find the hiding flowers. 

I cannot choose the road I take, 

Nor yet control the wind. 
Nor bid the happy valleys wake. 

Nor set the hills behind. 
Nor weave the mystery, nor make 

The living songs I find. 



[41] 



THE MONK'S PRAYER 

" I HAVE sought repentance day and night, 
Month after month, in my convent cell; 
But my sin is dragging my soul to hell. 

And I still love darkness rather than light. 

" For the lady I loved in the days of yore 

Came through the swamp to this awful place. 
And I heard her voice, and I saw her face. 

And I spurned her away from the convent door. 

" So I turned me again in hopeful mood 
Back to my prayers without a fear. 
But a cry still rang in the fleshly ear. 

And a face infested my solitude. 

" That cry neither praise nor prayer can drown ; 
The sound of that voice is the sound I love, 
And the sight of that face I prize above 

The golden gleam of a heavenly crown. 

" Devil or God that did'st send her to me, 
I hear her voice in the winds that blow ; 
Send her again through the swamps and the 
snow, 

God or Devil — I pray to thee." 



[42] 



A smile broke over his face of pain, 

And " Lady, a moment of this," said he, 
" Is worth the woe of eternity. 

And the sorrow that never will cease again." 

Oh! joy is fugitive as a breath. 

But the north wind freezes the ripples white 
And stiff on the face of the lake at night, 

And even a smile may be fixed in death. 

The monks looked down at the smile on his face, 
" And even the cloud of the flesh," said they, 
" Can glow with the gleams of celestial day ; 

LAUs DEO ! his soul hath at last found grace." 



[43] 



SONG 

When fields are bare, and Winter's angry 

breath 
Calls all the world to frost and storm and death. 
Sing me a song of the Summer 
With its slumbrous melodies, 
Distant notes of the song birds. 

And the drowsy hum of the bees, 
Plashing of reeds in the river, 
And sighing of winds in the trees. 

When shadows drape the earth, and night winds 

sigh 
Like ghosts of morning breezes in the sky. 
Sing me a song of the dawn time 

And the dew on the grass and the thorn, 
Hilltops ablaze with the glory. 

And the mists in the valley born 
Changed into golden sunshine 
In the crucible of the morn. 

Amid this life of fear and grief and wrath. 
When tempests rage and night besets the path, 
Sing me a song of my dear one 

And the infinite love in her e3^es ; 
Winter is turned into Summer, 
And peace on my spirit lies 
Like dew on the grass and the bramble 
When the dawn breaks over the skies. 
[44] 



ECHO 

I 
Her fillets are the storm-piled clouds on high ; 

She knows the haunts where eagles bring their 
plunder ; 
She renders shout for shout and cry for cry ; 

She pays a splendid usury to the thunder, 
Or wrapt in robes of silent majesty, 

Receives the homage of a loving wonder, — 
Like some sweet voice, now throned in a far sky, 

With ever widening years of silence under, — 
A voice which haunts the heart of memory 

Across the gulfs that sever souls asunder. 



[45] 



THE BOAT 

Ah, love ! I shall not soon forget 
How by this ocean we have met 
And watched the summer moon that set 
Across the darkling sands, e'er yet 

Time came for us to part ; 
But now at length the boat draws near. 
With lights and songs and sounds of cheer, 
The music strikes upon the ear. 

But dies upon the heart. 

So here for one brief hour we stand 
At love's sweet sufferance hand in hand 
Together on a moon-paved strand. 
And watch the waves upon the sand 

Beside a restless sea, — 
Till comes the vessel that must bear 
Me to a country fabled fair ; 
Ah, love f may I be happy there 

As on the beach with thee! 



[46] 



EARTH AND HEAVEN 

Her face is like the wealth of summer fields 
Where sunshine lingers o'er the dimpled 
grass ; 

To it this world its sweet luxuriance yields, 
But over it the ra^'s of heaven pass. 

Her mind is like those pure and gentle streams 
That hold the depth and starlight of the sk}^ ; 

Along its earthly course it glows and gleams 
With glimmerings of immortality. 



[47] 



A DREAM OF THE SOUTH 

Thick the snow drives in my face, and wild the 

tempest howls on high, 
And an endless, hurrying crowd of careworn 

faces pass me by, 
But I seek a fairer region underneath a tropic 

sky, 

Breathe the glorious ocean breezes, walk the 
shining sands once more. 

Watch the sunbeams in the water and the sea- 
gulls sailing o'er. 

And the white caps on the ocean and the foam 
flecks on the shore ; 

Shut the noisy, busy world out with the shell of 
memory 

At the listening ear of fancy, till my heart- 
beats seem to be 

Vocal with the lingering echoes of the far re- 
sounding sea. 



[48] 



THE MIRACLES 

Once, vexed with doubts, I did repine. 
And walked at night beside the sea. 

Puzzled that Jesus should confine 
His miracles to Galilee 
And not reveal His power to me, 

Nor make His hidden face to shine. 

Then dawn came o'er the darkling brine. 
With cloudy raiment streaming free. 

And spoke the word of power divine, 
And bade the winds obedient be, 
And walked the waves imponderably. 

And turned the water into wine. 



[49] 



POWER AND LOVE 

Through the uttermost parts of the sea though 

we rove, 
Or in hades below or in heaven above, 
Where'er we betake us, we cannot remove 
Our poor wandering selves from God's power 

and God's love. 

When the armies of Satan against us arrayed 
With their fierceness and mightiness make us 

afraid. 
Then the Lord sends His power and His love to 

our aid. 
And the battle is won and the conquest is made. 

Once when Israel's host with their enemy met, 
The sun went not down and the moon did not 

set; 
So God's power and God's love shine on high for 

us yet. 
And He never forsakes and He cannot forget. 

God's allies in God's cause with God's foes we 

contend ; 
Let us, then, on God's power and God's love 

still depend. 
For like space without limit, like time without 

end. 
Are the power and the love of my King and my 

Friend. 

[50] 



TO A SOUL 

I WOULD not seek to sound thy worth 
'Mid peddlers of the things of earth 

Who vaunt their wares with strident voices loud, 
Nor drag thy virtues out among 
The standards of the staring throng, 

The money-chasing, honor-hunting crowd. 

Men laud not that they do not see ; 

They praise thy deeds, but I praise thee, 
And sing the hidden grace that in thee lies, — 

The airy fancies, fairy-taught, 

And mystic moods from elfland caught, 
And hopes that ask no gain and seek no prize. 

Transcending every weight which fails 
To gauge the power behind man's scales. 

Thou wilt, in God's aerial balance, show 
Like that unseen and silent force 
Which steers the planets in their course. 

And swings the stars of heaven to and fro. 



[51] 



THE REFORMED PIRATE 

From a tropic sun and a land uncouth, 

And the fierce desires of a glorious youth, 

I came to your northern city ; 
The hand that smote has learned to toil, 
And women and clerks divide the spoil ; 

My epic becomes a ditty. 

But on a shelf of my memory set, 
Like curios in a cabinet. 

Is many a valued trinket; 
Implements, weapons and specimens they 
From a foreign land and a vanished day, — 

A strange collection you think it. 

Useless and harmless, there they stand. 

Oh ! the weapon survives the warrior's hand, 

And life alone is senescent; 
The joys and the woes of the past have died, 
And, like coral amid the shifting tide. 

Have bequeathed their bones to the present. 

I hate the smell of a drawing-room age, 
Its tempered love and its petty rage; 

You are moderate, calm and steady. 
There is one whom you never will civilize; 
With flaming sword and with menacing eyes. 

The angel of death stands ready. 

[52] 



THE RISING OF THE STAR 

Once, when night was old and hoary, 

Rose a star to tell of day, 
And the earth took up the story 

And the shadows fled away, 
And the ocean caught the glory 

In the fingers of the spray. 

Not with art of clever dealing 

And the wealth that it commands, 

To the sordid crowd appealing 

When they shout and clap their hands, 

But with generous deed and feeling 
Dawned the hope of seas and lands. 

And they thought He was a stranger 
When He came unto His own, 

And they put Him in a manger 
Instead of on a throne. 

But the hour of shame and danger 
And the dying made Him known. 



[53] 



ALL THAT THY SPIRIT IS TO ME 

" I would not to the marriage of true minds 
Admit impediments." 

All that thy spirit is to me, 

Ah I who can well divine, 
Unravelling eternity 

To sever thine from mine? 

As wind to wave, as flowers to Spring, 

As starlight to the dark. 
As sight to eye, as air to wing, 

As morning to the lark. 

As tune to tone, as warmth to light, 

As beauteous line to line. 
As all that changeless laws unite. 

So is thy soul to mine. 



[5*] 



THE POET 

No " maker " is the poet's heart, 

In spite of classic saying; 
The poet only leaves the mart 

And, through the meadows straying, 

Finds there the wild flower that appears 

Beside the path of duty. 
The bud that builds the storm of tears 

Into the bloom of beauty. 

That catches from the sky above 

In dim and faint reflection. 
The sunrise colors of that love 

That knows no imperfection. 

The humblest little bud that grows 

Is more than waxen flower 
That hath the colors of the rose, 

But not the vital power. 



[55] 



THE PALISADES 

There is a beetling rock which looketh down 
Across a river at a busy town. 

Bethink you how from thence we watched the 

world 
With Heaven's enfolding blue about it furled. 

So in the ampler compass of God's eyes 
Life lies horizon-rimmed with Paradise. 



[56] 



DAWN BY THE SEA 

The bright morning comes laughing and danc- 
ing and singing 
Across the expanse of the waters with glee, 
In her youth and her happiness heedlessly fling- 
ing 
Her jewels of light in the lap of the sea, 
From the fabulous mines of the Orient bring- 
ing 
The wealth of the gold of the sunshine to me. 

Far away o'er the main where the white caps 
are glowing 
And flocks of bright clouds glint and glimmer 
and flee, 
All the winds that spring up with the daylight 
are blowing; 
They come like fair ships that sail in from 
the sea, — 
Phantom ships where the fairies and elfs have 
been stowing 
The spices and perfumes of ocean for me. 

O light-spirited dawn I Incarnation of pleas- 
ure! 
O morning that cometh with dancing and 
glee! 

[57] 



How secured I thy favor that so without meas- 
ure 
Thou givest the wealth of the sunshine to 
me? 
And how came you to bring me your cargoes 
of treasure, 
O voyaging winds that sail in from the sea ? 



[58] 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



018 484 028 5^ 





